


Intricate

by sunchildrenandmoonfrogs



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Panic Attacks, Post-Watford (Simon Snow), Vampire Bites, Watford First Year
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26201482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunchildrenandmoonfrogs/pseuds/sunchildrenandmoonfrogs
Summary: Three times Simon Snow didn’t want to have children, and the one time he did.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Kudos: 12





	Intricate

_Tick, tick, tick._

The seconds pass by. A slow procession. A funeral march. The clock is locked in a cage on the highest corner of the room. Like they’re scared we would start a rebellion against the passage of time. Or something. Either way, it always makes me laugh, looking at that clock.

_11:50_

I’ll be twelve in ten minutes. Theoretically.

They don’t actually know what day my birthday is. Just an estimate that it was at most a week before I was found. Turned in. Abandoned.

But the twenty-first is the day I choose to celebrate, if you can even call it that. Its just a doughy cupcake from the home workers and a prayer sent to any god that will listen to please bring my parents back. It hasn’t worked so far.  
  
I think about who they would be. Probably beautiful. Elegant and handsome and funny. Athletic. Fashionable. A footballer and a model. Or pair of businesspeople. But the good kind. Not the ones that sell blenders, but the kind that make magazines or new laptops or something else cool. They would love me. If they knew me.

The sheets on this twin bed, which is mine until the end of summer, until my second year of Watford, cling to my legs. Like a second layer of skin. Which is exactly how magic feels.

The change from Watford to the home, which was just a couple days ago, but felt like years, felt like being woken up from a beautiful daydream by a bucket of ice water. Instantaneous and shocking. The home and Watford are inverses. Beauty and belonging (even if I still don’t really fit there. At least I have two people that go along with me.) versus stress and loneliness and the constant reminder of all that is missing.

As I twiddle my thumbs and the long hand hits _11:58_ , something hits me.

Like a slap across the face. Like a punch to the nose. I’ve been in a world of magic, with endless spells. There’s a spell or finding people, I’m sure. And… and my parents must’ve been magic too. They could’ve, _should’ve_ , been able to come get me by now, _right_?

So… why didn’t they?

I close my eyes, breathe in and out. The sweat on my skin feels cold and burning. The room is getting smaller. I flip off the sheets, striped and stained and ugly, and race to the bathroom. My chest hurts like my ribs are trying to push their way out.  
When I open my eyes again, my knuckles are bleeding and the bathroom wall has a new crack. My face is wet and red in the mirror.

What was so wrong with me that they didn’t want me? What could I have done within days of being born? Why didn’t they love me?

The mirror cracks and splits as my eyes bore into it. My face splits into fractals, fractions. Broken, broken, broke.

Why would they have me, just to leave me?  
I go back to the room. Lay in bed. I look at the wall. _12:23_. My parents are never coming back for me. Not today. Not next year. I look around, to all these kids like me. I wonder if they’re still waiting for their parents.

I’ll never do what they did to us. I’ll never make a kid stay up ‘til midnight on his birthday hoping for me.


End file.
